Page 38 of Haunted Tides

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“Oh my god, that’s crazy,” I breathed out. “Meaning our ghostly visitors here are attached to the boat and whatever happened here.”

“Abandoned.” Another answer that could mean many different things.

“You abandoned the ship or you were abandoned by your superiors?” Lincoln asked. His voice was hard. The idea of men who’d served, much like him, being abandoned surely didn’t settle well.

“Engines. Fire.” It wasn’t the answer I was expecting. I’d figured this was some crazy military conspiracy type of situation and now we’re finding out it was engine failure. But wouldn’t the Navy have received their distress calls? Tracked them down?

“I’ve seen the room in daylight. If there was a huge fire they’d have had to do some major cleaning to get these walls white again. Maybe we can ask our rep from Haunted Histories about it,” I suggested.

“The comments are asking if you can send this to the Navy. It’s a long shot but maybe if they hear the audio they can do some digging,” Ryker suggested, the comms crackling slightly in my ear.

“Ryker is pointing out that you guys want us to send the audio to the Navy,” I said to the Darklings. “Ben?”

“I’ll get the clip from Ryker and find some contacts tomorrow,” he promised right away. My chest warmed at the thought of at least letting some of the souls move on. They didn’t deserve this curse. This was the part of the job that always hit me hard. We had our fun and got to explore some amazing locations. But we also got to save a few souls along the way. I didn’t know that was possible until I met the coven, but now we were helping any spirits we could. It felt nice, like our job held so much more meaning now that we weren’t just reporting our findings, but doing something to free those who had spent countless years roaming endlessly.

“We will try and send someone to find your bodies,” Lincoln promised. A cold breeze blew between us in response and a shiver raced through me. The scent of sea air, sweat, and tobacco filled my nose and for a second the faint sound of laughter and chatter filled the air. I wasn’t sure if our equipment picked it up, but I just knew the spirits were celebrating.

Wehadto make sure someone at the Navy listened to us.

“Is there anyone else here that wants to speak?” Ethan asked. It was silent for a moment before he spoke again, to us this time. “Something else is here and it is not the same. I feel angry and… I don’t know how to describe it other than hyper.”

“Are you the entity that chased me out of here?” I asked.

“The comments are blowing up saying they saw eyes across the room and could hear a quick laugh,” Sully said through the comm. Ice ran through my veins and I glanced around, expecting to see it myself.

“We understand you don’t want to leave,” Ethan called out. “And we won’t make you yet.”

“But we will let others leave. You can’t make them stay,” Lincoln clarified in a harsh voice. My fingers immediately went to the crystal hanging around my neck, a gift from Astrid to protect me, though it hadn’t done much good here. Or maybe these spirits just out-powered my protection. The hair on my arms stood on end as a static charge filled the air. My hand brushed Ethan’s and we both yelped as we shocked each other. It was so intense it sparked in the dark and left a small sting behind.

“Fucking hell,” Ethan grumbled. “These ghosts are not normal.”

“That’s something else we’ve uncovered here, Darklings. The ghosts seem to have more energy here than anywhere else we’ve encountered. We are not only seeing and hearing more, but they’re more physical. We strongly suspect something here is feeding them, we just can’t figure out what,” I added in since that was never discussed on screen. My viewers had always been included in every aspect of my haunt, they were the only ones I could bounce ideas off of for years, so I didn’t want them to feel like I gave them less now. Even if my powers were something I kept hidden the best I could. They were here for me when I had no one else, and they were the reason I became successful, so I refused to forget that now.

“We’re not getting any answers out of him,” Ben stated.

“He’s gone,” Ethan said. “For now at least.”

“Then let’s head to the beach and see what we find on the shore,” I offered. At this point I just wanted light and some air. It was starting to feel oppressive, like every breath was labored. Ethan might have thought he left, but I knew he hadn’t, the heaviness hadn’t changed for me. I wasn’t sure what it was about me that he hated, but it seemed he wasn’t done with me yet.

Lincoln seemed to sense my urgency and took my hand, leading me outside. It wasn’t until my shoes hit the sand that I truly felt better. Whatever that particular spirit had in mind, I knew it was nothing good.

What the hell is up with this place?

ChapterFourteen

Brea

“Untrue. If Bigfoot was real, then we’d have real footage by now. We live in the era of cell phones,” Ben argued.

Ethan scoffed as he pointed at Ben with his fry. “Their existence literally hinges on not being seen. They wouldn’t be stupid enough to get caught except in quick glances. And if they do exist, why wouldn’t we assume they have some sort of cloaking power?”

“Okay, this conversation is getting too weird for me,” Sully said, throwing his hands up in amused exasperation.

“You get used to them,” I reassured him. “Anything back yet, Ben?”

Ben flipped open his laptop again and refreshed, clicking on a new email. “Not from the Navy of course, but I did hear back from the Haunted Histories CEO.”

“Read it to us,” I demanded, putting down my burger so I could listen. That and my stomach was rolling again. Must be the nerves.


Tags: Jarica James Paranormal